


A Dream Of Fire

by entanglednow



Series: 13 Days of Halloween [7]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Comfort, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Death, Fire, Guilt, Hell Is Awful, M/M, Sad, Trauma, death of a family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:02:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27188350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: Sometimes the worst thing Hell makes Crowley do, is nothing at all.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: 13 Days of Halloween [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1977847
Comments: 62
Kudos: 217





	A Dream Of Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 'Bonfire' prompt, for the 13 Days of Halloween list of prompts, made by racketghost. There is also [fiery art](https://candescentdibromoindigodreams.tumblr.com/post/633096443441381376/entanglednow-lady-why-are-you-making-me-feel) for the story by candescentdibromoindigodreams. Which made me feel so many things!
> 
> Explanation of the tags in end notes, since I think this one might need them...

Crowley was supposed to join him at the house before sunrise.

He's made something of a habit of showing up at the last minute, but a weak light has already filtered its way through the window slats. The cold of the night turning into the chill of the morning. The air smells like smoke and charred wood, with the raw and unsettling tang of cooked meat underneath. Which Aziraphale knows says nothing good about the night before. The birds are awake enough to break the silence with sharp, demanding cries.

Aziraphale's been trying not to worry for hours, though if he's honest he's been doing little else. The church has been on something of a mission recently to purge what it considers to be 'fell influences' - a category he can't help but acknowledge that Crowley will be naturally assumed to belong. But the demon has his orders too, and Aziraphale is familiar enough with the sort of work Hell presses him into, he knows the awful things it sometimes demands of him.

Crowley is perfectly capable of not being noticed when he wants to be, and humans pose no real threat to him on their own, but it's still hard not to fret. Aziraphale has risen from his chair several times, to pace the room, to drift close to the door and lift his hand for the latch, determined to leave the house and look for him. But he forces himself back to the chair every time. He's not supposed to interfere, he's supposed to approve of the intent behind the purge, if not the grisly methods.

It takes another hour before the door finally swings in, before it lets a long, thin shape slink inside.

Aziraphale is on his feet immediately, relieved enough to ignore the carefully unspoken rules of distance and caution that they both understand are necessary, that they have followed since their one slip on the Ark when they'd - when they'd offered comfort to each other.

"Crowley?" He can't keep any of his relief from the word, and he's reaching up to grasp the demon's arms without thought, pulling him into the light so he can look at him. Only for his hands to tighten in horrified surprise.

Crowley's hair is black, his skin streaked with soot. The dark glasses that Aziraphale had become so used to are missing, and the yellow of his eyes is stretched to fill the surface entirely, in a way he hasn't seen for centuries. 

Something terrible has happened. He doesn't need to have known Crowley for more than five thousand years to see that.

The shirt Crowley's wearing is a shade of green Aziraphale has never seen on him before, sooty but otherwise clean, the trousers a flat and serviceable brown. But his skin, where it shows beneath, is charcoal dark. Aziraphale realises that Crowley had stolen the shirt and trousers from somewhere. That he'd needed to replace whatever clothes he'd been wearing originally.

"Crowley, what happened?" Aziraphale asks gently. "I was worried." 

The demon feels so thin beneath the unfamiliar shirt, the hard lines of his collarbones stark and stained dark beneath the unlaced collar. He says nothing for a long moment. Long enough that Aziraphale squeezes his arms, says his name again.

"Crowley?"

"They set the barn alight," Crowley says simply. The words flat and dull. "While we were inside. I was told not to interfere, I was told to let it happen." He doesn't say anything else. But he doesn't have to.

The weight of those words is immense, and nothing Aziraphale could say seems good enough. They've seen so much over the years, they've witnessed so much of the horror that humanity is capable of. But the thought of Crowley being ordered to do nothing while the family he stayed with was forced into the barn, forced to huddle together in the dark, while their fellow townspeople set their home alight.

They would have blocked the doors, and then waited outside to make sure no one escaped.

Once forbidden to act, Crowley couldn't leave. But he couldn't burn either, since no fire on earth could harm him. He'd been forced to stay in the flames with the people he'd come to know, come to care for, no matter what he said. He'd had no choice but to live through it with them, to see the terror, the despair and the grief on their faces as they realised they were all going to die. And finally he'd been forced to watch their bodies burn, all the way to the end.

Aziraphale cannot picture it, it will break him if he tries. He encourages Crowley to sit on the bed, miracles a bowl of water and a cloth. He wets it while Crowley gently cracks his neck to one side and then the other, before sinking into a numb sort of stillness. The dirt has sunk into every part of his face, making the lines around his eyes deep, and the hollows of his cheeks wide and awful. Grief makes the demon look old and fragile. Aziraphale lifts the cloth to his face, touches him with careful hands. He can feel the texture of the soot on his fingers, the way it immediately clings to his own skin. He pulls the wet cloth across the high curve of Crowley's cheek, then the bend of his jaw. Until the skin beneath finally shows through, damp and familiar, still hot to the touch. Aziraphale wrings out the cloth, miracles the water clean and starts on the line of Crowley's nose, the hollow under his eye, as gently as he's ever touched anyone.

"I'm so very sorry," he says quietly. "I know how fond you were of them, especially the -" He stops, he doesn't say it. He quietly cleans Crowley's temple, the curve of his ear, the slope of his neck. They haven't touched this much since the Ark, haven't allowed themselves to be this close, to feel the warmth of each other. Aziraphale doesn't know when it happened but Crowley's long dark fingers are curled tight in his jerkin, leaving spreading smears of black on the white leather.

He's cleaning the line of his jaw on the other side when he sees Crowley's eyes slowly shut and then open.

Aziraphale pauses, the cloth just touching the skin.

He's never seen Crowley blink before. After all this time he'd assumed it wasn't something he needed to do, that his eyes didn't work that way. He wonders if it's a habit he's picked up, it had to have been fairly recently or Aziraphale thinks he would have noticed. 

It happens again, slower, and it's almost as if Crowley has to force his eyes open again. Aziraphale realises belatedly that it's not a blink. The demon is exhausted and he's fighting sleep.

"You can rest here, if you need to." At this moment Aziraphale truly doesn't care that the rooms are in his name, doesn't care that Heaven knows where he is. Crowley so rarely needs anything from him, and he's never wanted - never needed - to give it so much.

But Crowley shakes his head, pieces of ash and soot drifting from his hair.

"If I sleep then I'll dream." His voice is a quiet, raspy thing, as if talking hurts. "I don't want to - I can't see it again."

Aziraphale's hand moves, until it's cupping the demon's face, his thumb moving gently on the dampness he'd left there. There's nothing in the gesture that can be passed off as assistance to a stranger in need. Nothing he could dismiss. Nothing he could excuse.

He leaves it there anyway.

"I'll wake you if you dream," he promises.

Crowley gives a dry, painful cough - that Aziraphale doesn't think is a cough at all. He helps the demon sink into the pillows, his head spreading darkness on the pale cotton like a filthy halo. But Aziraphale slips a hand through his sooty hair, blackening his fingers in slow, gentle pulls.

Crowley's eyes eventually shut completely.

**Author's Note:**

> Tag Explanation - Crowley is locked inside a house that is intentionally set on fire, and has to watch the family inside burn to death. On Hell's orders.


End file.
